This article aims to review the current literature pertaining to the effects of eating local seasonal food on sustainable consumption. To this end, we examined definitions of seasonal and local food, the methodological approaches adopted to study the impact of seasonal consumption on sustainability, and sustainability dimensions investigated in journal articles. Highlighting what seasonal and local means, it is crucial to evaluate the effect of the consumption of these foods on sustainability. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using Scopus and Clarivate’s Web of Science database in line with the recommendations from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Our findings suggest that the concept of local seasonality provides relevant information to the study of sustainable consumption. However, for better use of this concept, it is crucial to define what is local. At this point, regulation of labels based on geographic proximity or political boundaries proves pertinent.

Every year, agri-food industries in industrialised countries produce approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of food loss and waste. The adoption of a circular economy policy has received special attention by the agri-food industries, allowing for the creation and development of new food products made of by-products that would otherwise be wasted or used for secondary applications. The present work, of an exploratory nature, aims to assess how consumers conceptualise the circular economy in order to identify consumer recognition of the use of by-products from the food industry to upcycle food products and to evaluate attitudes towards the circular economy. To this end, a mixed-methodology was applied to 340 participants. The first part was qualitative and used free word association to evaluate consumers’ conceptualisation of the circular economy and use of by-products as foods. Data were analysed by grouping the responses into exclusive and exhaustive categories and a correspondence analysis was also performed to originate perceptual maps. Additionally, a questionnaire was designed to evaluate major concepts and attitudes correlated with the circular economy. Data were reduced by principal component analysis (PCA) and participants grouped through clustering. Results showed that consumers understand circular economy as related mainly into Sustainability, Economy, and Circularity dimensions. Participants had great difficulty identifying the by-products used as foods or as food ingredients. From the quantitative data, four groups were identified based on the associations to the six principal components originated by the PCA. However, the results highlighted a very low association with all clusters of the Food Valorisation dimension within the concept of the circular economy, and also a lack of a clear understanding of consumers’ attitudes towards food products from the circular economy. Greater promotion and dissemination by the competent entities aimed at the general public may contribute towards greater integration, participation and acceptance of the circular economy concept for the upscaling of food by-products.